Sunday, November 17, 2013

Jimmy Breslin

When Vision Was King The 51st State
When
Norman Mailer ran for mayor, the race was fueled by the outsize talent
that powered New York itself. IN 1969, in the midst of devastating
strikes, rising racial conflict,
sinking finances, terrifying crime rates and an expanding, dysfunctional
city bureaucracy, the pugilistic writer Norman Mailer
made a quixotic bid for mayor of New York.

Today Galvanizing visions? Hey, maybe there’s an app for that

The columnist Jimmy Breslin
campaigned alongside him for City Council president. Far from being a
gimmick, the pair electrified the electorate with bold plans and even
bolder political theatrics. “People,” Mailer said, explaining
his plan to harmonize the city’s neighborhoods into self-ruling
municipalities, “are healthier if they live out their prejudices rather
than suppressing them in uniformity.” Imagine any of the current
candidates talking like that. Gloria Steinem, one of the organizers of Mailer’s campaign, wrote at the
time, “The possibility of inserting any ideas at all into the primary
seems better than leaving it to the professionals.”Mailer wanted to put free bicycles
in city parks and to ban cars from Manhattan. He proposed subsidized
day care, giving methadone to addicts, requiring the police to live in
the neighborhoods they served and converting dilapidated waterfronts to
affordable housing.

Words and Wisdom of Jimmy Breslin

Pulitzer
Prize-winning and hard working reporter Jimmy Breslin was interview
last week by CUNY investigative report in residence Tom Robbins on the
publication of his new book Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin at the CUNY
Graduate Center (The old Harold Tribune building) . (Video)

I
say as a reader your getting robbed . . . Go Out and report that is
with two feet and go out and climb stairs . pay attent to what the guy
said - shut up and listen. He was the first to report charges that a
narcotics suspect had been tortured with an electronic stun gun while
in police custody in Queens. He was also cited for sympathetic
portraits of AIDS victims.

Lazy does not require any thought

Lazy
suckers Reports did not cover aids or the 106th Pct. stun gun scandal.
Breslin did and won the Pulitzer for his investigative reporting

"Branch Rickey Changed America By Putting the First Black Jacky Robinson in Major League Baseball" Breslin

Breslin Hates Copycat JournalismDon't Follow the Crowd - That is Death

"Don't
go with the mob. Not going to be with everyone else the pack" On the
morning of President Kennedy Funeral Breslin did not want to do the
same column that hundreds of other reporters were writing so he when to
Arlington Cemetery and interview the working class man who dug the
grave for president. Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor

_____________________________________

Jimmy Breslin Stuck Up for the Little Guy, Took Shots At the Powerful Pols and Believed Firmly in the Idea of Social Progress ― Jimmy Breslin RIP (1930 - 2017)

Ron Howell "My God. Jimmy Breslin, the New York City newspaper columnist and best-selling author who leveled the powerful and elevated the powerless for more than 50 years with brick-hard words and a jagged-glass wit, died on Sunday. He was 88, and until very recently, was still pushing somebody’s buttons with two-finger jabs at his keyboard."

It is Not the End of An Era, That Era of Great Journalism is Sadly Long Gone RIP Jimmy Breslin

Dennis HamillNews just came that the great Jimmy Breslin has died at home in his belived New York City at 88. Jimmy was a Pulitzer Prize winning master of the city column. His work will outlive us all. As my brother Pete just said, " It feels like 30 people just left the room."Andy Humm The word "great" is overused. But Jimmy Breslin was the greatest columnist New York ever knew--a relentless tribune of the powerless and deflater of political charlatans. Yes, he was gruff and abrupt, but he was also hilarious and charming. He won his Pulitzer Prize for his columns on the unfolding AIDS crisis, focusing on a young Villager, David Camacho, a gay and political activist, who was brave enough to be out there about the terrible disease he had at a time when most were still hiding. Deepest condolences to his spouse, Ronnie Eldridge, his kids, and all of those who loved him.

Michael Powell "Perpetually raging against the night, Brilliant Jimmy Breslin, grand witness for the oppressed &amp; ignored, dies"Jimmy Breslin: "I write with my feet not my head" ... In other words, go there. Into tenements, into the ditches where men work and die.4The Outrage and Genius Ideas of Breslin's Run for Office Should By Studied by Anyone Who Cares About New York City

Not even death could silence Jimmy Breslin's titanic voice (NYDN Ed) There was the Jimmy Breslin who, assigned by the Herald Tribune to cover John F. Kennedy's funeral, made a beeline for the graveyard to interview the men digging out the President's final resting place, because, he showed, we learn most about the powerful among us from the vantage of the least. There was the Jimmy Breslin who was the chosen confidant of the elusive Son of Sam, aka the .44 Caliber Killer, who wrote to "J.B." care of the Daily News:

"I read your column daily and find it quite informative," adding ominously: "Sam's a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood."Hurtling toward Crown Heights in a taxi in the thick of the 1991 race-religion riots — true New Yorker that he was, he never learned to drive — Breslin became the target, and the chronicler, of rage: "The kid on the hood swung the baseball bat with as much speed as you could want and with a look on his face that told you all you ever want to know about life in New York at this time." He emerged from the melee with a busted lip, black eye and no clothes — and a hell of a column.

GABE PRESSMAN When a raspy voice came on the telephone saying "What's do-in?" you knew it was Jimmy Breslin, engaged in his ever-constant search for news. He was tough and gruff, but sometimes, we suspected, it was an act, part of the persona of a tough reporter he tried to project to his readers and viewers. I think at heart he was a compassionate guy. He cared a lot about people. I remember the Son of Sam story and all the other events and personalities he covered. He was relentless in his pursuit of stories---and he had the basic traits of a good reporter---tenacity, irreverence, compassion.

“I’m the only [bleeping] guy who still goes out every day and climbs stairs for a story” Breslin

The Lost Art of Jimmy Breslin JournalismTo younger colleagues: the story isn't always the person with the title. Why Jimmy Breslin is a legend in his time

Prints of the city (NYDN Ed) Toasting legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin. Far too long ago, Stanley Walker, legendary city editor of the New York
Herald Tribune, described the newspaper you are reading as “a jolly,
rollicking brother of all humanity.” The memorable phrase came to mind
with Jimmy Breslin’s
induction into the Deadline Club’s Hall of Fame. It well fits the man.
Breslin came to journalism equipped with the painter’s eye for detail,
the composer’s ear for the music of New York speech and a heart that
could write. Good columnist? No. Great columnist, one day hilarious, the
next heartbreaking, unafraid, on the right guy’s side, always
authentic, even when peopling his pieces with characters of the
imagination.

About Jimmy

Mr.
Breslin, who was born in Richmond Hill, Queens, began his column in
1963 for the defunct New York Herald Tribune in a style that has been
described as The New Journalism - borrowing in style from traditional
fiction.

He wrote
for The New York Herald Tribune from 1963 until 1966, for The Daily
News from 1976 to 1988, and then for Newsday. His columns were peopled
with the prominent, like Hugh Carey, the former governor, but also
with shady characters with names like Sam Silverware, Larry
Lightfingers and Jerry the Booster, and with normal New Yorkers
struggling with crime, poverty and other urban and human ills.

More Jimmy "The Pekingese Press - Afraid of Everything"

"Newspapers Do Not Attack Politicians Enough"

Breslin could not name a columnist he reads today

Breslin Ran on the Norman Mailer Mayoral Ticket in 1969

"Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers." Jimmy Breslin